EspressoDude wrote:Fencing: This cannot be outside the 'sandmen'. They need to be able to retreat from the burn and a fence outside will trap them. It is almost impossible to re-orient yourself close to a burn to figure which way to run if they have to 'escape' and a few gates isn't going to work.

The fencing does not need to be so close to the sandmen that it'd be dangerous for them to escape, and the "gates" would be more like 30 ft long unfenced sections that are manned with a lot more perimeter guards. The fences would mostly be used to corral runners into areas where there are more guards, and delay runners that try to scale the fences directly.

Putting the fences up and taking them down won't be too terrible. They're already in portable kits and can be assembled or disassembled by hand. To open up the perimeter, they could probably break down the fence into groups of three pieces and then cluster they together until it's time to gather them up to put them away. It's a pain, yeah, but doable.

"The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law." -- Christopher Hitchens

BB: have you been in close to a big burn? it is damn scary and disorienting. When you head says RUN AWAY, you do and won't be looking for holes in the fence.

There is barely enough folks that can be reliably available for perimeter sober, or making the art ready for burning. Adding a fence to the task list before and after a burn will overwhelm the artist. take ALIEN SEIGE MACHINE, nearly impossible to get enough perimeter folks. after the burn everyone left except the artist. Next morning the only person doing clean up was the artist. adding fencing set up and takedown to the artist's have to list will overwhelm many artists who will just say FUCK THIS, and become spectators (not even participants) or "I used to go to this thing in the desert"

of course that is what I say "I used to go to this thing in the desert"

EspressoDude wrote:BB: have you been in close to a big burn? it is damn scary and disorienting. When you head says RUN AWAY, you do and won't be looking for holes in the fence.

It's certainly not something you want in your way, but I'm not thinking of something that close. The fence would be a decent distance from the Man, perhaps half the distance to the audience. It's roughly the same distance as the large mass of volunteers within the perimeter. It could provide half-coverage, not a full perimeter. Hell, at that level of coverage, there may not even be a need for even taking them down until much later because the crowds could amble around them, or the edges could be moved to keep the crowd from colliding with them when entering the area (don't want it to be a crush zone like areas of Mecca).

Each panel, assuming freestanding temporary barricades, weigh about 40 pounds each, which is quite doable for dismantling on the fly. It's definitely more work, but this whole thing is more work.

There is barely enough folks that can be reliably available for perimeter sober, or making the art ready for burning. Adding a fence to the task list before and after a burn will overwhelm the artist. take ALIEN SEIGE MACHINE, nearly impossible to get enough perimeter folks. after the burn everyone left except the artist. Next morning the only person doing clean up was the artist. adding fencing set up and takedown to the artist's have to list will overwhelm many artists who will just say FUCK THIS, and become spectators (not even participants) or "I used to go to this thing in the desert"

That's, well, part of why you'll need something like a fence, because if they're forced to provide more security they'll need either more people on site, or some sort of "force multiplier" to do more with the same number. This all assumes that something will be done at all of course.

Maybe they can just widen the circle as well to create more distance, while keeping the inner perimeter the same or more expanded. Then there's more intercept time and distance, and can claim that it provides a larger audience perimeter to fit more people in. Still, that means more area to cover with the same number of people.

"The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law." -- Christopher Hitchens

Maybe we can co-host a calf-roping event during the main burn and the contestants can catch runners. Just like the rodeo rules, once the legs and feet are tied, the drug-addled runner has six (6) seconds to break free, otherwise it doesn't count.

"The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law." -- Christopher Hitchens

Token, liability is an expensive toy to play with. Lets say an employee at your business gets in a physical altercation with anyone. (Fellow employee or patron.) Should you decide to keep him/her on the payroll, you better pray that they never do it again. The second incident is all your fault.

This thinking WILL take part in decisions.

Pictures or it didn't happen GreycoyoteI a recovering swagaholic I have to resist my grabby nature VultureChowThose aren't buttermilk biscuits I'm lying on SavannahWe're out there to play like adults with no adult supervision CaptG

Ratty wrote:Token, liability is an expensive toy to play with. Lets say an employee at your business gets in a physical altercation with anyone. (Fellow employee or patron.) Should you decide to keep him/her on the payroll, you better pray that they never do it again. The second incident is all your fault.

This thinking WILL take part in decisions.

Huh? How does fighting apply to this situation?

It will come down to whether the BORG had sufficient controls in place to prevent the incident.

When 20 years of data are presented to determine if controls were in place, I’m of the opinion that the determination will be affirmative.

Now Federal and local authorities may ask for more staff, comms, surveillance and whatnot, but I doubt it will be physical barriers and the likes.

The BLM probably doesn't have a lot of experience in SRP liability. The last detailed Afterburn Report in 2013 had about $500K insurance costs in a $26M budget. That would include all kinds of insurance, including property and workman's comp. In my observation, the BORG has an able legal staff and are managing risk well given the inherent danger. They have a good relationship so far with the participants which may have helped them not being sued out of existence. They really don't have much in assets, so they are not the best target. No doubt there is a county or federal investigation which could take some time and may have to be paid for out of ticket revenues. Hope where this goes is a "Zendo of All."

Now Federal and local authorities may ask for more staff, comms, surveillance and whatnot, but I doubt it will be physical barriers and the likes.

Token I really hope you're right. I didn't care for that fence around the temple.

Pictures or it didn't happen GreycoyoteI a recovering swagaholic I have to resist my grabby nature VultureChowThose aren't buttermilk biscuits I'm lying on SavannahWe're out there to play like adults with no adult supervision CaptG

It could be too that policy changes will be more concerned with protecting volunteers, rather than drug-addled immolators from themselves, beyond what is already in place. Most volunteers are not trained to subdue a psychotic individual in these dangerous situations; it's like a store employee running after a shoplifter and making a bad situation potentially worse.

In the case of this year's runner, people risked their lives to try and catch that guy and to pull out his body as the structure collapsed. They could've been pushed, hurt, or even attacked by the guy in that psychotic state. Had those volunteers been grievously injured or died that would have been a tragedy.

"The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law." -- Christopher Hitchens

Cooler heads prevail, and unnecessary complications / overreactions are optimized out of a situation after a large multi-agency bureaucracy has had a year or so to chew on the problem? Sounds pretty likely to me!

Now Federal and local authorities may ask for more staff, comms, surveillance and whatnot, but I doubt it will be physical barriers and the likes.

Token I really hope you're right. I didn't care for that fence around the temple.

Fingers crossed. The fence was a knee-jerk situational thing. Needed at the time but for the long term very likely an unworkable.

How is it unworkable? It "worked" for the temple burn and they only had 24hrs to think it up and implement. Face it, the burns will be fenced off going forward. Doesn't bother me as the two main burns have been a shitshow of Disneyland fireworks, sound car volume dick measuring and drunk/high yahoos for years now. I avoid both. But I know a lot of people still put a lot of stock and work into them, so it's gonna suck for those people.

Token wrote:You have clearly never been in the circle with a job to do when the masses charge in.

It is unworkable.

Give it a try and work the circle sometime to find out how crazy the heard becomes.

Having talked to a Sandman and a Ranger who were working that night (but on the other side), and having worked outer-perimeter myself, I'm still curious how the Moth got passed the middle line of Rangers without being intercepted.

The Sandmen, sweating their asses off as they slowly cook inside their heavy nomex suits, are never going to be as agile as some self-destructive or altered individual who just doesn't care about the heat.

The middle line of Rangers seem to be the main force of interceptors.

I imagine that having the Fire Conclave and VIP "Friends of Larry" (some animals are more-equal than others) littering the ground and confusing the perimeter at the Man burn, doesn't exactly help the Ranger's job.

I'd like to know, but probably never will, if the stupid moron on his bike who caused so much distraction was a major contributory factor to the Moth's success.

Apart from the ugly fence, I thought that the basic organization of the Temple burn was a pretty good compromise.

The expanded perimeter size; some extra folks on the outer-perimeter (we really didn't need that many, it seemed more like a show-of-solidarity than anything else); and most-importantly, the new line of Rangers just inside the outer-perimeter, all seemed like good ideas.

I'll be curious to see if the BORG opens up the Man and Temple burns to the BPSG next year in order to try to get more volunteers.

Another idea: ring of rope around the burn lying on the ground. If Perimeter is going to miss someone, two of them can pull on the rope; there's a chance it would snag or trip the runner. Could be replaced with a 3 foot band of cargo netting, or have the slack rope tied to stakes at intervals so that only one Perimeter guard has to pull on the rope to snap it up.

Token wrote:You have clearly never been in the circle with a job to do when the masses charge in.

It is unworkable.

Give it a try and work the circle sometime to find out how crazy the herd becomes.

People are pretty well behaved up until the perimeter signals that they can enter the circle though. They weren't causing trouble after they were disallowed to enter at the last event.

For the fence, the 40 pound fence sections could be moved to specific zones and roped up prior to allowing people inside. The main concern at that point would be preventing people from people attempting to tip them over, climb them, or get crushed against them.

It'd be much better, of course, if none of this shit had to be done in the first place though.

maladroit wrote:Another idea: ring of rope around the burn lying on the ground. If Perimeter is going to miss someone, two of them can pull on the rope; there's a chance it would snag or trip the runner. Could be replaced with a 3 foot band of cargo netting, or have the slack rope tied to stakes at intervals so that only one Perimeter guard has to pull on the rope to snap it up.

Ropes of a decent length, especially with netting, will be pretty heavy and take a bit of effort to become taut. It'd mean there would need to be many shorter intervals of rope or some sort of motorized system to quickly lift it. Then the people there would need to decide whether to try and grab the runner or tend to the rope system.

"The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law." -- Christopher Hitchens